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1.1.8-Pilferingapples
Brick!club Book 1 Ch. 8 After Dinner Philosophy In Which Things Get Really Really Awkward! Right, all that happens in this physically is that the Bishop has dinner with a total jerk of a Senator who brags about being a jerk the whole time and the bishop, good fellow that he is, does not attempt to knock hot soup into the Senator’s lap. Well done Bishop. But… URGH. I will be very surprised if the blogs about this chapter do not run towards the Displeased side of the spectrum. Look, I get that the Senator’s a bad guy; he is representing Bad Guys, specifically the sort who cherish personal, material gain over the well being of others. Ok! That’s bad! And not an uncommon attitude! Also he’s basically faithless, refusing to believe in anything but his own gain and comfort, and we know how Hugo feels about people living sans faith. But does it have to be so explicitly linked to his atheism? I realize Hugo was a product of his era, and had his own faith issues, and all, but I…sort of?…feel like Hugo is unnecessarily conflating the beliefs he disagrees with? I trust everyone at my blog these days to take as a given the idea that having a specific religious faith does not in any way=moral worth in either direction, because I’m not getting into that argument (because WOW, NO, I have things to do tonight) That leaves me only with the goose-and-turkey comparison, really. Which, I know for non-Americans turkeys were a serious luxury item (y’all geese are way tastier though?!? Is this a point being made about how the things this Senator values are costly but not as rich, in the end? I doubt it but I have no training in faith debates but I care a lot about food) but were geese actually easy to get? I mean, for people living beyond the “baked once a year black bread” diet. Leaving aside my issues with the the narrative voice,I’m actually more impressed with the Bishop for handing his opponent in this chapter than the last. A bandit in the woods is a hypothetical danger; a loudmouth at the table is a certain annoyance. But Myriel just sits back and lets the senator keep paying out rope. A relief to the host, I’m sure, who probably was not prepared for a church/state throwdown when they planned the meal. Tomorrow: Oh, no, Hugo. Commentary Gascon-en-exile Here’s an early example of Hugo getting on a soapbox as a substitute for characterization, because this senator is just a summation of every ideology that Hugo rails against for the rest of the Brick: atheism, materialism, hedonism, social darwinism, classism, cynicism, and possibly others I’m overlooking. There will be other characters later on that express or embody some of these beliefs - Tholomyès, Thénardier, Gillenormand, Grantaire - but none of them are so thoroughly detestable as this senator (well, probably Tholomyès) because they at least get a little actual characterization to accompany their philosophical ramblings and unethical behavior. God (and/or a positive outlook on human nature) are sufficient to protect the bishop from Cravatte in the last chapter, but this one suggests that the true threat to Myriel’s work is ideological. He’s pretty clear that everything this guy says is meant to be taken as incorrect, but based on the various digs at the Church in preceding chapters and increasingly secular morality of the narrative once the bishop is out of the picture, I’m not sure if Hugo is coming down as hard on atheism as might be expected, actually. Even Myriel’s teaching develops a morality that isn’t really specific to Catholicism or even Christianity. Amoral atheism is bad because, as far as Hugo is concerned, it turns life into nothing but selfish pleasure-seeking at the expense of everyone and everything else, but that doesn’t necessarily rule out secular morality. Though the goose/turkey analogy does throw a wrench into that interpretation…bleh. As far as fowls on the dinner table are concerned, I’ve no idea, though given the frequency of Christmas geese being mentioned in Victorian narratives (plus one Sherlock Holmes short story I can think of where someone hid a stolen jewel in a goose), I’m guessing that geese weren’t as rare as turkeys in 19th century Europe. I agree with you about geese tasting better, though. However, truffles > onions. Incidentally, this is the second Brick club post in a row where I’ve not quoted anything from the original French. Am I getting lazy, or bored? Eh… Caramarthenfan So…I actually really liked this chapter, despite being a semi-militant atheist*. Hugo on atheism does frustrate me in general, and I would have really liked amore positive atheist character to counterbalance the senator. BUT, just taken on its own, the senator reminds me strongly of a certain school of “skeptic,” usually straight white well-off dudebros, who pretty much do think like that, and claim that virulent self-interest and asshattery is “rational” (they often have “rational” justifications for sexism and racism as well). Atheists like the senator are still around today, still annoying as hell, and as a takedown of that type of atheist, I found this chapter pretty amusing. I just wish Hugo had recognized the existence of other types of atheists. *I am militant about being an atheist, about not being ashamed of that, and about atheists being people who should not be assumed to morally suspect, and who probably know more about atheism than religious people do. I don’t really have any desire to convert other people to atheism. Edwarddespard (reply to Caramarthenfan) He just came across to me as the classic strawman atheist, one that is pretty common in literature…it was damaging to come across them as a child reading the works of C S Lewis and L M Montgomery, but as an adult you tend to just shrug your shouders and move on. It’s pretty bog-standard rhetoric - most atheists, I suspect, would be quite famiiar with being told we are selfish social darwinists with a hedonistic, materialistic view on life and morality, sneering at the faithful and complacently patting ourselves on the back over our intellectual superiority. And I’d agree with Carmathon that there are a few of these figures to be found swaggering around on messageboards…it always amuses me when we’re told this is an outgrowth of the “New Atheist” movement. I’ve had certain people of faith complain to me that in the good old days atheists weren’t aggressive and materialistic, they were all mild mannered Bertrand Russells (which rather annoys me, given how Bertrand Russell, supposedly a “good” atheist, was treated in his lifetime). But as we see from the Senator, the idea of the smugly self-satisfied, condescending atheist long predates Dawkins, Hitchens et al. I can’t recall encountering a really sympathetic atheist in the literary canon - they were either smug like the Senator, or embittered (and there’s a trope about atheists that Hugo does manage to miss - the Senator seems pretty content and isn’t bitter and angry). Except, perhaps, for some of A E Housman’s characters…and they tend to be a bit on the bleak side philosophically. As mentioned before, though, Hugo didn’t personally have a problem with befriending atheists…or at least in one instance he was happy to befriend one he could easily beat in debate. Theonlycheeseleft (reply to Caramarthenfan) HEY BRICK!CLUB HEY! It’s okay I’m a week late, right? Have this epic ramble to make up for it. I sort of enjoyed this chapter for similar reasons. I know so many of those, as you wonderfully labeled them, “straight white well-off dudebros,” right down to the casual racism and sexism (many of them are also staunch “men’s rights activists,” which is always fun). As someone who identifies as an atheist now, but was struggling with the faith she was raised in until as recently as last year, I can say that these aggressively annoying, self-congratulating types are not at all helpful to someone asking serious questions about faith and belief and the complications of organized religion. There’s always that dudebro in the corner calling you an idiot for ever believing in a god, and it is nice to see him get taken down Hugo-style here. I do agree that it’s unfortunate that this sort of atheist often seems to be the only sort of atheist portrayed in the media, considering that most of the atheists I know are quite understanding and accepting of people’s faith-based decisions (to be fair, most of the religious people I associate with are the same regarding atheists). And in a novel like this, which is so symbolic at every turn, it’s nigh impossible to read the senator as anything but Hugo’s personal interpretation of all atheists. I’m going to choose to interpret this a different way, though, based on this bit: Of course, there must be something for those who are down, for the barefooted beggars, knife grinders, and miserable wretches. Legends, chimeras, the soul, immortality, paradise, the stars, are provided for them to swallow. They gobble it down. They spread it on their dry bread. He who has nothing else has the good…the good God is for the populace. Hugo maybe be criticizing atheism, yes, but I think he’s also criticizing this attitude towards the poor, towards the working-class as unthinking drones who will swallow any myth handed to them. More than anything, the senator seems to believe he is above faith, that because he is well-off, he can condescend to those who have not had the opportunities he has (see: well-off dudebro). Faith is beneath him, because those who have faith are beneath him. His whole attitude reeks of the idea that the poor cannot be educated, and therefore will accept anything that will give them hope. Feuilly’s character seems to be the counterpoint of this idea, because he is self-educated, because he thinks and forms opinions, because Feuilly has probably been spoon fed a lot of ideals he’s learned to argue. Feuilly would call you on your shit, senator, and he would use Poland as an example and take you down so hard. (Does Feuilly ever get into any kind of faith talk? I don’t think so, but correct me if I’m wrong). Feuilly shows that, perhaps, “he who has nothing else has the good” - but that the good does not necessarily mean god. The good is the people, the good is freedom, the good is equality, the good is education. The good is Poland. These are the things Feuilly has faith in, and they are not mindless beliefs. They are educated passions. tl;dr The senator is an awful dudebro, and Feuilly is cool. (Wow, I haven’t seriously meta’ed in a really long time, that felt good.) Kcrabb88 (reply to Theonlycheeseleft's reply) I love ALL THE THINGS you say here! Especially the point about the senator’s attitude toward the poor and him treating them like they are incapable of thinking thinking outside their boxes, of being educated and treating a religious faith as if it is something that only poor will believe in. He’s definitely giving off the “only the wealthy are capable of thought or education” sort of vibe really hardcore, and that’s just uncool. Meanwhile the bishop, who spends so much time with the poor, has dedicated his life to them just sort of sits there and goes “Whatever you say, senator” and maintains the belief that the poor are just as capable of making their own choices about faith and religion as anyone else. Dudebro is the perfect term for this guy, for sure. ;) Also YES, Feuilly is an excellent counterpoint to the senator’s arguments; he had such a hard lot in life and still he worked incredibly hard and educated himself all because he chose and wanted to do so! Oh, Feuilly, we all love you.